Why Read the Masters?

Abstract

The present article is a plea for the value and the obvious relevance of reading in the formation of every generation of students and teachers. Reading brings us knowledge and it usually comes as a pleasant surprise. It helps us and it guides us in our quest for knowledge, especially when we break open different kinds of texts – scientific, philosophical, literary, historical, to name a few. Are there any lessons to be learned? Can we really find role models? What is the main thing that reading can do to make us better people? A quick introduction about history, followed by quotations from various scholars like C. S. Lewis, takes us back to the experience of (re-)reading Plato and Aristotle. When recent or contemporary scholars continue the conversation, we segue into the concepts of a good character and the value of virtue, which lead us to moral education and moral imagination. They all confer reading a unique quality that eventually gives us a chance to savor its greatness and at the same time hope to achieve something equally rewarding.